Mad As I Am
by TheLongStreet
Summary: Warning: Wincest!  Sam needs a psychiatrist.  Will Dean do?


Mad as I Am

Author: TheLongStreet

Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine. My prospects aren't looking up either…

Warning: This contains Wincest! All flames of that nature will be used for my s'mores, so don't bother.

A/N: My first Sam/Dean fic…my sister was begging ( :0) ) Please let me know what you think!

"I'm as mad as I am but no more." - Quote from 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie'

Sam Winchester knows he isn't crazy, but sometimes it's hard to convince himself that the job hasn't finally gotten to him after all. But it's not the demons and ghosts he's worried about. It's pretty to believe in something that can beat you up, or tear your heart out; there's no point denying a specter when it can make your stomach turn simply by pressing its ethereal hands to your brother's beautiful face, scratching lightly. No, Sam knows that those things are real.

His mother's death is real, and Jess's, and his father's. Sometimes, sleeping in the car, when they are driving through a sunny afternoon in some sleepy western town Sam will dream that they are all returned, in full color, and he can feel the thrum of life beneath their skin, the bright splashes of hue against their cheeks, Jess's loud lipstick, his mother's gentle eyes quietly assuring him that it is no more and no less than a dream. He always enjoys these, because it is the only time he knows when the three of them existed together, cheerfully and without the tinge of death upon their pallid faces.

Lamenting the past does not warrant a psychiatrist either. In fact, Sam is beginning to suspect that melancholy is one of life's natural states, just as happiness and sorrow easily inhabit niches of the psyche. If they aren't busy with a job on her birthday, he and Dean usually travel back to Lawrence to visit Mary's grave. Of course, her grave is as empty as their fruitless search for revenge, but there is solid comfort to be found resting a hand against her granite headpiece, one of Dean's arms slung over Sam's shoulders, the scent of him dizzying and somehow flooring in the quiet grace of the graveyard.

Which brings Sam to his failings. When the comforting weight of your brother's arm against your neck makes your heart race and your palms sweat, even at the foot of your dead mother's blessed resting place, then there's something wrong, isn't there?

"Dean," he asks nervously over the noise of the Impala's sexy rumbling, "If you love someone when you shouldn't, is that wrong? Does that make you… I don't know, tainted, evil?" Without looking he feels his brother's dark eyes on him, resting curiously on his face as the shadows of the evening travel restlessly through the car's interior.

"Sam, are you thinking about the demon again? Because we've been over this. Your powers, they're part of who you are. There's nothing evil about that!"

"I'm not talking about the demon, Dean. I'm talking about something else that's…part of who I am. That I've been suppressing, like the demon was suppressing my powers."

Sam can hear Dean's expression changing, listens as his brother lifts his eyebrows skeptically, lets out a slow and even breath.

"Is this about the time you wet the bed in fifth grade? Because if you think that's a still a secret, you're sorely mistaken, little brother." Sam smiles into his shoulder, ducking his head in embarrassment with the memory.

"No, that's not what I meant. But how did you find out, anyway?"

Dean waggles his eyebrows devilishly. "I have my ways, bitch," he boasts, his eyes lighting up with laughter, burning like glowing coals in the dark interior, warming Sam's heart with their familiar affection.

"But really, Sam, what's this about? What could you be doing that's so evil?" Dean's words are light, but behind them Sam can feel the fear, the insuppressible anxiety that he has instilled in Dean, that he's going to leave again, Dean's Sammy, out again in the Great Wide World without him.

"I love you," he whispers softly, miserable, feeling it all coming to an end, even as Dean presses lightly on the breaks, slowing the Impala until they have come to a standstill in the breakdown lane, their steady breaths fogging the windshield as they sit in eggshell silence, examining the cracks with fear and even a strange, tentative optimism that sometimes accompanies confessions.

"What?"

"I love you. A-as more than just a brother." Sam mumbles, his voice quickly becoming loud, filling the car with sentiments too powerful to be maintained at lower volumes. "I think about you all the time, about kissing you, a-and stuff. About how I'd die if you did. That it isn't wrong at all… that we were born to be together!" His tirade dying on trembling lips, Sam fearfully squeezes his eyes shut, willing even his ears to participate in his blindness, that he need not experience disgust from the one he loves so ardently.

"We were." In a tender gesture, Dean reaches out and brushes Sam's cheek lightly with his hand, knuckles ghosting over young skin, leaving behind a shock of goose-bumps that no real spectre ever brought forth in him.

"We were, Sammy. We always were."

Sam feels as if an ugly black string is being slowly unreeled from the tangled palette of his conscious, and with it everything seems to be coming unglued. A wild, exultant color rushes beneath his eyelids and they fly open, his gaze finding Dean's in an instant, _the _moment, he realizes suddenly, that they have been approaching since the day they were born.

And then Dean leans over and kisses him, powerfully and gently, and Sam has to rethink all over again. Sometime later he lazily recalls that love is always crazy. Besides, they're Winchesters, born and raised. They've always been crazier than most.


End file.
